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O3A View

The O3A "View" plugin library is designed for work with video, both traditional film and modern formats for Virtual Reality.

Use the "View" applications to show video on screen or in VR, synchronized with your Digital Audio Workstation (DAW). In your DAW, you can monitor with a choice of binaural decoder, with head tracking. You can even control some of our plugins from the video display, both on screen and in VR!

These are higher order ambisonic (HOA) VST2 and AAX plugins
for macOS (10.7+) or Windows
(Win7+) running on 32bit/64bit Intel. They can be hosted in some Digital
Audio Workstations (DAWs) that can handle tracks with at least 16 channels.
Options include Reaper,
Pro Tools Ultimate,
Pyramix and Max/MSP. Not all plugins are supported in AAX.

The View applications are more demanding
than the plugins themselves. View requires Windows 10 64bit, or macOS Sierra
(10.12). ViewVR requires an HTC Vive and a Windows 10 64bit machine meeting
specs for the Vive. ViewVR will not run on macOS at this time.

These plugins use the SN3D ambisonic convention, at third order.

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Highlights

The View Applications

Each View application (View or ViewVR) is controlled by an O3A View Sync plugin.

The connection between the plugin and View application is managed over a local network connection, so the application can run on the same machine, or a different one, even one running a different operating system.

The plugin can be used to set the video to be shown in the View application and manage synchronization. Stereographic video formats are supported, although they will only be rendered stereographically in ViewVR.

In ViewVR, 180 and 360 degree videos are presented as you would expect and traditional formats (4:3, 16:9 and 2.39.1) are shown on a rectangular screen within the VR scene. Moving the Head Mounted Display (HMD) results in head tracking data being sent back to the DAW, and the plugin can rotate the soundfield to match.

In View, the same scene is presented as in ViewVR, but on your normal screen (not in VR) - and with a choice of projection. A camera projection gives much the same view as ViewVR and can be panned around with the mouse - in this case, the camera angle is sent back to the DAW as simulated head tracking data. Another option unwraps the scene onto a rectangular projection that is consistent with our panning and visualisation surfaces. Grids are available too to help with orientation and the grids and video warp consistently when the scene projection is changed.

Once connected, a few of our plugins acquire an extra "View" button on the top right. This includes the 16 and 32 channel panners in this library and some plugins in other libraries (including the free O3A Core). This allows certain spatial controls (typically panning direction) to be controlled from View or ViewVR, using mouse or Vive controllers respectively. In addition, the O3A Flare plugin (in the free O3A Core) can be used to overlay audio visualisations on top of the video image.

The VR Monitoring Decoder

The VR Monitoring Decoder is used to decode (or "render") an O3A mix to stereo. It is designed to simulate the final output you will get within a VR experience, providing a number of different decoder styles. The various HRTFs provided by Rapture3D are included, as is YouTube's binaural decoder (as of late 2016).

If you place this decoder after the O3A View Sync plugin above and enable head tracking, this can provide head tracked binaural rendering - synchronized with 360 video - while you pan sounds around in VR!

Plugin List

O3A Decoder - VR Monitoring

I/O: 16 in, 2 out

This decoder converts O3A mixes to stereo. It has a number of binaural decoder options so you can check how your mix will sound in VR.

O3A Panner - 16

I/O: 16 in, 16 out
AAX: input mapped to third order ambisonics

This provides 32 channels of panning in one plugin. It comes into its own when controlled from the View applications.

O3A Panner 32

I/O: 32 in, 16 out
AAX: not supported

This provides 32 channels of panning in one plugin. It comes into its own when controlled from the View applications.

O3A View Sync

I/O: 16 in, 16 out

This plugin manages a View application. It can modify the DAW audio stream to take head tracking into account.

Tech Requirements

Operating System

Studio Plugins

For the VST plugins, supported versions of Microsoft Windows are Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10. Supported versions of Apple macOS are 10.7 or later, Intel only. The VST plugins are available in 32bit or 64bit forms on both platforms (packaged as a Universal Binary on macOS). The AAX plugins are 64bit only.

View Application

ViewVR Application

For the ViewVR application, Microsoft Windows 10 64bit is required, along with an HTC Vive and a computer meeting technical requirements for the HTC Vive. macOS is not currently supported.

VST Host

The VST plugins require a VST 2 host with shell plugin support.

These plugins do not work with all VST 2 hosts. One reason for this is that the O3A plugins need large numbers of channels on their input or output busses. Check the individual plugins for the channel counts they need, but all of the O3A plugins need at least 16 channels on each track, and some need more. Also note that not all VST 2 hosts can use shell plugins. In particular, at the time of writing shell plugins are not supported in Nuendo or Cubase.

AAX Host

Due to channel and stem restrictions, not all plugins are supported in AAX. Please see the documentation for details.

PC Hardware

Please check your PC meets the following requirements:

Intel Pentium D CPU or better for use of the VST plugins.

Intel Core i5 CPU or better for use of the View application.

Intel Core i7 CPU or better for use of the ViewVR application, along with technical requirements for HTC Vive.

200MB of free disk space.

Internal network card.

Internet Connection Required

These plugins require an Internet Connection for license activation and verification. We don't really like this, but we can't think of a better way to discourage piracy! Please don't hack our code, it's taken a lot of effort to get it this far...

Successful license verification isn't required every time you use the software, but it is needed during installation and needs to succeed once every couple of weeks to keep the license fresh.

The license can be "revoked" to remove it from one machine so it can be moved on to another. You should also do this if you're updating your system in case the machine appears to have changed identity.